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By Root 737 0

around her. Well when the grass gets too high you cut it, right, that's what you do, you cut it and he was laughing a little, it was simple. A simple idea and he started up the mower, it took a few tries but he started it. A left turn from the garage, walking past the driveway with a happy stride, pushing the mower before him, growling sound of the mower a comfort in his ears and all at once the ground trembled, was it the mower's vibration? It trembled again, harder this time, no earthquakes here, what the hell and it happened again, more strongly, over and over until the grass moved like water, choppy undulating waves that gained and climbed until he stumbled beneath their force and lost his footing entirely, fell down and saw with a shout of fear that the mower was still on, was growling at him now, the waves of grass aiming it towards him. He rolled away, a clumsy scramble to stand again, half-crawled to the safety of the still driveway. As soon as his feet left the grass the waves stopped. The mower's automatic cut-off shut it down. He was crying and couldn't help it.

"What do you want," screaming at her, tears on his lips, "what do you want," oh this is the last straw, this is enough. No more.

Back to the garage, looking for the weed killer, the Ortho stuff he'd used before, herbicide, and the term struck him and he laughed, a hard barking laugh. He had trouble attaching the sprayer, the screw wouldn't catch and he struggled with it, the hastily mixed solution, too strong, splashing on his skin, stinging where it splashed. Finally in his heat he threw the sprayer down, the hell with it, he would just pour it on her, pour it all over her.

Walking fast across the grass, before she could catch on, before she could start up, hurrying and the solution jiggling and bubbling in the bottle. "Are you thirsty?" too loudly, "are you thirsty, Anne, are you ― " and he threw it at her, bottle and all, as hard as he could. And stepped back, breathing dryly through his mouth, to watch.

At first nothing seemed to be happening; only her eyes, opening very wide, the eyes of someone surprised by great pain. Then on each spot where the solution had struck the foliage began not to wither but to blacken, not the color of death but an eerily sumptuous shade, and in one instant every flower in her mouth turned black, a fierce and luminous black and her eyes were black too, her lips, her hands black as slowly she separated herself from the fence, dragging half of it with her, rising to a shambling crouch and her tongue free and whipping like a snake as he turned, much too slowly, it was as if his disbelief impeded him, turning back to see in an instant's glance that black black tongue come crawling across the grass, and she behind it with a smile.

A Soft Voice Whispers Nothing

THOMAS LIGOTTI

LONG BEFORE I SUSPECTED the existence of the town near the northern border, I believe that I was in some way already an inhabitant of that remote and desolate place. Any number of signs might be offered to support this claim, although some of them may seem somewhat removed from the issue. Not the least of them appeared during my childhood, those soft gray years when I was stricken with one sort or another of life-draining infirmity. It was at this early stage of development that I sealed my deep affinity with the winter season in all its phases and manifestations. Nothing seemed more natural to me than my impulse to follow the path of the snow-topped roof and the ice-crowned fence-post, considering that I, too, in my illness, exhibited the marks of an essentially hibernal state of being. Under the plump blankets of my bed I lay freezing and pale, my temples sweating with shiny sickles of fever. Through the frosted panes of my bedroom window I watched in awful devotion as dull winter days were succeeded by blinding winter nights. I remained ever awake to the possibility, as my young mind conceived it, of an "icy transcendence." I was therefore cautious, even in my frequent states of delirium, never to indulge in a vulgar sleep, except perhaps